


stopping by woods

by Anniely



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, minor character injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 04:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21093200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anniely/pseuds/Anniely
Summary: Robbie falls: metaphorically, but mostly quite literally.





	stopping by woods

Robbie hates it when suspects run as soon as they hear ‘Oxfordshire police’. What’s the motivation here? When has running from the police ever turned out well?  
He hates it more the older he gets. It’s not that he isn’t fit; he’s got a nurse for a daughter, a health nut – if one ignores the smoking – for a sergeant and a history of heart disease in the family. It’s in his best interest to be in as good a shape as he can be.

But the wood behind the out of the way pub is dark – lovely, dark and deep, he hears Hathaway’s voice in his habitual, always slightly sarcastic drawl – the thick canopy drowns out what little light there was on this drab November day the, and the ground is soft, which makes running even more difficult.

Robbie can hear the rhythmical sound of leaves and twigs crunching and breaking under expensive Italian leather shoes coming from behind him. His sergeant has fallen slightly behind and if Robbie wasn’t puffing like a steam engine and having a hard time making out their fleeing suspect in the low light, he would not be above gloating just a little, even though he had a bit of a head start to their chase.

Up ahead, the vaguely human-shaped shadow that is their suspect, a small-time criminal by the name of William ‘Billy’ Havers illegally selling cigarettes and cheap vodka out of his garden shed that neither Robbie nor Hathaway believe actually killed his landlady by drowning her in a mudbath, suddenly disappears behind a broad tree trunk. His lead is only about ten, fifteen metres, but Robbie knows that in these light conditions and with the ground as soft as it is that can be more than enough to get away if you zig at the right moment.

Robbie speeds up as much as he can, vowing to make Hathaway do all the paperwork on this one, since he will, probably, be lying on their office floor, icing various parts of his body.

He rounds the tree Havers disappeared behind, eyes darting left and right.

And the ground under his feet disappears.

* * *

The sky above is the murky purple-grey of mid-winter days, one solid cover of clouds that looks like a grey ceiling. Robbie blinks. He doesn’t know why he is lying here, looking at the sky, but despite its greyness, it’s surprisingly bright.

His eyes feel heavy, so he lets them close.

"Sir!"

Someone is shouting.

"Sir!"

The voice sounds upset and if Robbie wasn’t so tired he would look around, ask if he can help. He is a copper, after all.

"Sir!"

The voice comes closer, getting louder, more frantic, and Robbie manages to peel his eyes open again. He is a copper, after all.

There’s crunching to his right, like someone is scrambling over uneven, leaf-covered ground. Before Robbie can wonder why there are leaves around him, a head swims into his vision, between him and the bright, grey sky. The light makes the man’s blond hair almost glow.

The man has a halo, Robbie thinks, nonsensically.

The narrow face under the halo looks worried, blond eyebrows drawn together. When the man speaks again, his breath turns into fog in front of his face.

"Robbie?"

It’s his name, said in such a worried voice, that sends him back into his body. Suddenly he can feel the cold and damp ground under his back, how some of the moisture has already seeped through his coat, can feel his head throb, can, in fact, feel his whole body ache.

He is lying spread-eagled on the ground, Hathaway leaning over him. All Robbie manages to get out is a pained groan.

James puts his hands, and how has Robbie never realized how long, how large, Hathaway’s hands were, on Robbie’s head, gently running them along the sides and back of it, feeling, Robbie guesses, for head wounds. Judging from previous experiences, Robbie would bet he’s got a bit of a concussion but isn’t bleeding. He doesn’t know what it says about his work as a copper that he can so very easily distinguish between concussion headaches and bleeding-headwound headaches.

As James hands leave his head, drawing what feels like very hot lines down the sides of Robbie’s neck, Robbie finally manages to draw enough breath to speak.

"I’m fine, lad," he wheezes, the air cold in his lungs, making him shiver.

He tries to push himself up, leaning on his right arm, but Hathaway’s hand, warm on his chest, stops him.

"Sir, you shouldn’t move. You might have a spinal injury."

It does, in this moment, strike Robbie that for all that they have been partners for years and friends almost just as long, they don’t really touch except for the occasional pat on the shoulder or leading hand on an arm. James’ touch feels welcome nonetheless and Robbie puts his hand on top of the one James has on his chest and pats it gently. It’s reassurance for James as much as it is reassurance for himself. _We’re both still here_.

"I can feel me legs and me toes and even me hands. Don’t fret now." He levers himself up again, so that he is at least sitting up and not lying on the forest floor like an overturned turtle. He tries to look past James. "What happened to Havers? He went this way, I was right behind him."

James points over his shoulder without saying anything and then leans to the side so that Robbie can see past him. They both look over at Havers’ body, lying on the earth, limbs akimbo. His right leg is bent at an impossible angle and his eyes are open and unseeing. There is a puddle of blood around his head, which he must have hit on the log his head is lying on, staining the already late fall-coloured leaves an even darker shade of red.

A shudder runs through James’ thin frame and Robbie only now realizes that James has taken off his coat and spread it over Robbie.

"Ah, James, help me up now. And take your coat back. Can’t have us both freezing."

Finally, Robbie succeeds in struggling completely upright, although, really, he only manages because James pulls him most of the way up. He also only stays upright because of James’ steadying hands on his shoulders, the world tilting dangerously sideways the moment he is vertical.

"Sir, you should really sit back down."

Robbie refuses to sit on his arse, so instead he waits, stubbornly leaning on James – for stability, he tells himself and not because being close to James like this makes him feel warm from the inside – while his sergeant phones in to the station and requests for backup, Laura, and EMS to be sent to their location.

"They’re on their way," James says, like Robbie isn’t basically hugging him and could hear every word of the conversation. "Are you sure you’re up for the walk back?"

Robbie nods and despite his assurance that he has been walking since he was about one year old and will continue to do so for a good long while yet, James insists on putting his arm around Robbie’s waist and drawing Robbie’s arm around his shoulders. It strains Robbie’s shoulder a little, since James is obnoxiously tall even compared to Robbie’s own not insignificant height, but it does make the trek back to the car infinitely more easy. Robbie decides to keep his thoughts on James’s height to himself and instead focus on walking despite most parts of his body throbbing.

* * *

It borders on miraculous that they make it back to the car. His head throbs in time with his stumbling steps and he can feel Hathaway’s anxious gaze on him the whole way.  
At least, after quite a few words, though none of them too loud, since even the smallest noises currently echo in Robbie’s head like someone is practising the bloody tuba right next to his ear, Hathaway at least agreed to take back his coat.

"I’m more likely to freeze if I have to look at you shivering in your expensive designer shirt,"Robbie snapped and James took back his coat looking like it was physically paining him to do so. He did, like he was trying to get back at Robbie, walk even closer, though. Robbie, again, refuses to employ his scrambled brain to figure out why that makes him feel warmer than simple transference of body heat could account for.

Fifteen minutes that feel like fifty later, they stumble out of the wood into the car park behind the pub. Their car is, by now, surrounded by police cars and two ambulances.

Laura, already in one of her blue crime scene body suits, is watching them with one hand on her hip and one eyebrow lifted. She walks toward them, looking Robbie up and down, assessing how hurt he is.

"What have you done now?" she asks, her tone reproachful, but her hands are gentle when she helps Robbie sit down in the back of one of the police cars.

Laura waves off a paramedic and then hushes Robbie’s protests that this was "Not my fault Laura!". Robbie, having lived with a woman for most of his adult life, admits defeat and surrenders to her examination, nitrile gloves sticky on his clammy hair. Over Laura’s shoulder, he can see James pointing out the hollow where Robbie and Havers took their tumble on a map to a young DC. When James looks over, Robbie rolls his eyes dramatically. His sergeant, true to form, grins, a quick there-and-gone-again thing that Robbie doesn’t get to see nearly often enough. Laura takes that moment to press down on the back of his head, where the pain still radiating through his body seems to be situated.

"Christ, Laura!"

"Stop making cow eyes at your dishy sergeant," she admonishes, but at least stops prodding at his head. She does, however, reach inside her body suit and get a penlight out of her trouser pocket instead, which she then proceeds to shine straight into Robbie’s eyes.

"Laura!"

"Pupil reaction normal." The penlight disappears inside her body suit again. "How is your headache?"

"Splitting, now that you’ve blinded me."

"Poor lamb," Laura gives back, not the least bit of actual pity in her voice. "I’m not going to make you go to the hospital, if you promise me that James is going to stay with you tonight."

"Laura," Robbie says again, aware that he sound like a lad begging to be allowed to stay up past his bedtime.

"No, don’t ‘Laura’ me, Robert Lewis. You’re not invincible." She puts her hands on his shoulders and leans closer. "Don’t make me worry about you more than I already do."

Robbie is not heartbroken that Laura and him didn’t work out as romantic partners. They gave it a good try, realized they were better as the friends they had already been and would hopefully always be, and returned seamlessly back to being how they had been before. Only in moments like this, when one of them is hurt – mostly Robbie – or is working on a particularly hard case, does it become apparent that they had once been more than friends, both of them standing closer and being freer with their touches than they might otherwise have been.

"Aw, lass," Robbie sighs, but it is a token protest at most. He knows he is going to deny Laura anything. He isn’t, however, quite sure how to feel about asking James to be his glorified nanny for the night. Not that he doubts for a second that James is going to agree, drive him home and tuck him in – and there it is again, that bloody warmth inside; maybe he is running a fever from lying on the wet ground earlier, not that he is going to tell Laura about that. So Robbie resigns himself to spending a night with Hathaway in his flat and resolutely not thinking about why he likes having his sergeant in his space so much.

"Alright," Robbie agrees. "I’ll ask him."

Laura throws him a look that says she knows exactly what he was thinking and it’s slightly scary that she can still read his mind like this.

"As if you’ll need to ask." With that, and a last pat to Robbie’s shoulder, she turns around and joins the constable with the map after talking to the paramedics, most likely assuring them that they don’t need to cart Robbie off to John Radcliffe.

Robbie sighs again and leans back against the seat, closing his eyes for a moment.

* * *

As Laura predicted, Hathaway agrees immediately.

"Of course, sir," he says, nodding his head. "I already called the Superintendent. She says to take the rest of the day and the morning. Julie will hold the fort for us."

It rankles a bit, having to step back in the middle of a case when their first and only suspect has just turned into a literal dead end. But Robbie has been a copper, albeit a stubborn one, long enough to know that sometimes taking a step back from an investigation was sometimes necessary.

So he lets Hathaway herd him to their car and bundle him into the passengers seat without complaint. He does, however, draw the line at letting James fasten his seatbelt.

"I got a bump on the head, not on the hand, lad," he says.

James closes the passenger door as quietly as he can, ever considerate, and takes his own seat, starting the car and points them back to civilization. When Robbie looks over at him, his sergeants face seems strangely pale in the late evening light.

* * *

Robbie’s got half a frozen, homemade, lasagna at home and that’s about it. Luckily, Hathaway is a dab hand at beating Robbie’s wonky oven into submission. Therefore, by the time Robbie has dragged himself through a shower, just managing to deter James from having him keep the door open, the flat smells like tomato sauce and molten cheese.

Plonking himself down at his tiny dinner table, Robbie takes the two pain pills James hands him gratefully and swallows them down with the glass of water James also puts down in front of him.

"Thank you, James," he says and leans back against the chair.

James, suit jacket discarded over the back of Robbie’s sagging couch, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, only nods and gets the steaming lasagna out of the oven with the ladybug-patterned oven mitts Lyn gifted him last Christmas.

They eat in comfortable silence, although Robbie can feel an undercurrent of tension running through their interactions; it flares up between them whenever their eyes meet over the still-steaming lasagna. It is, now that he knows what to look for, not a new feeling between them. For all that they’re not tactile people, they’ve always been in each other’s orbit, never straying too far, basically from the moment they met; comfortableness born out of mutual trust and respect.

Robbie can count the number of people he has ever been this at peace with on two hands.

It does make him wonder, though. What kind of copper is he, that he has – wilfully? – ignored the way James is around him, turns toward him, circles around him and also how he does the same, gravitating toward his sergeant.

Leaning back in his chair, Robbie watches James move around his kitchen as comfortably as if it was his own, washing dishes and putting already dried ones back into their respective cupboards. He doesn’t feel the slightest bit of unease at having another person in his space like this, like they know they are welcome, like they belong.

‘You, Robert Lewis, are a bloody idiot.’

He is also, apparently, an idiot in love with his sergeant.

The thought makes his heart jump and his stomach lurch, like the ground has disappeared from underneath his feet again, although, he hopes, this time the landing will be infinitely more soft.

* * *

Robbie is aware that he likes to drag his feet: He takes ages to go see a doctor for anything, he didn’t get rid of his old mattress until he almost literally broke his back. It took him months and months to gather the courage to ask Val to marry him and she finally beat him to it. Laura, too, sat him down one day and told him it was either now or never.

Robbie knows this.

He wonders, though, sitting here watching James humming some polyphonic melody under his breath while cleaning up, whether waiting for things to sort themselves out or for James to address this _thing_ between them is the right way to deal with the awkward sod that is his sergeant. There isn’t a single doubt in his mind that James would let him get away with it, with humming and hawing. He would lurk around in the background, as he does, providing coffee and sandwiches and the occasional well-timed pint or two.

But, Robbie thinks, feeling all of his years in the still-throbbing bruises on his back, it might be time for him to finally stop dawdling.

"Sir?" James voice pulls him out of his thoughts.

His sergeant is standing in front of him, kitchen towel slung over his shoulder, blond brows furrowed again.

"Sorry, woolgathering," Robbie says.

"I can finish up here on my own," James says. "You can go lie down. I promise not to steal the silverware."

"’m not tired yet." It’s a lie; he’s tired and achy but unwilling to let this evening end, now that he has finally made up his mind. "Why don’t we see what’s on the telly?"

"If you’re sure, sir?"

"Geroff, now, lad. You’re scrubbing me plates, there’s no need for this sir business here."

Surprise on James’ face is subtle: a slight widening of the eyes, head tilted fractionally to the side. If he wasn’t already beat up, Robbie would be hitting himself right now for not offering earlier, for not making it absolutely obvious that James has a place in Robbie’s life, that he matters.

"All right, Mr Lewis."

"Cheeky sod," Robbie says, then pushes himself up. "How about you finish the dishes and then we’ll try to find something that won’t rot out brains completely?"

"We’re just in time for _Bake Off_," James says, looking at his watch.

Robbie nods, slapping his hands on his thighs.

"_Bake Off_ it is."

* * *

There is a couch in Robbie’s living room that he didn’t buy. It came with the flat, yellow, old, faded flower pattern, and some parts are more spring than cushion, and Robbie looked at it and thought it was the ugliest couch he had ever seen and decided to keep it. When he first moved back to Oxford, he didn’t believe he would be having people over at his flat – didn’t, actually, believe that he would be spending a lot of time at his own flat – so a lumpy couch was the least of his worries and when Hathaway started to come over more and more the terrible couch suddenly became something else entirely. A place where Hathaway would sprawl, loose and relaxed as he rarely was at work, trying to get his lanky frame onto the couch without the springs digging in too painfully. And Robbie would sit on the other side of the couch, jacket gone and beer in hand, and feel at home – finally – despite the spring digging into his butt and the fact that the couch still, despite his best efforts, smelled like wet cat.

"You know," James says, as if he once again read Robbie’s mind, carefully sinking down onto his side of the couch, "you should really think about getting a new couch."

"Not a fan of yellow?" Robbie asks, pulling the blanket Val made during her sewing phase, that he carried all the way to the BVI and back, off the back of the couch and spreads it over his and James’ legs.

"I like yellow," James gives back, smoothing the blanket over his thighs, "But I also like all my innards intact and unbruised."

Robbie grins and turns on the TV.

"The youth of today," he teases and shakes his head in mock disappointment, zapping through the channels until he lands on Paul Hollywood’s face.

"Are you calling yourself old?" James asks, just as someone’s dough explodes in a cloud of flour.

"Hush, you. Don’t get smart with me, now."

"I thought you liked me smart?" James asks, eyes open wide and guileless, belied by the grin huge on his face.

"Aye, that I do, James, that I do," Robbie says, although he knows James most likely said it in jest, a typical invitation for Robbie to poke a little good-natured fun.

He puts the remote on the low coffee table, bought at sale James dragged him to, and turns to look at the man next to him.

"I like you quite a bit, in fact, me."

James posture changes immediately, his body suddenly taunt, like someone has tied a wooden board to his back, back ramrod straight, but shoulders pulled up to ears, like he is bracing for a punch – or a punchline.

"What are you saying?"

"I am saying that this out of his prime Geordie Detective Inspector fancies you something rotten."

On the telly, one of the contestants is mixing something bubbling in a pot that resembles tar more than anything actually edible and James looks over for a second, before turning back to Robbie, hands in fists on his knees, asking, "But … are you sure?"

"James, lad, do I strike you as the kind of man who says this kind of thing lightly?"

"No. But, s– Robbie, you were married."

"Yes, James."

"I’m a man."

James voice is honestly confused, like he can’t quite wrap his big brain around the fact that Robbie could possibly be interested in him and Robbie can’t help but tease just a little.

"Well spotted, lad. Sharp as a tack, you really are."

"I mean –"

"I know what you mean, James. And let me tell you, your generation did not invent bisexuality. Which is what I am. And –" he rubs a hand over his suddenly hot neck, because talking about being in love is apparently easier than talking about sexual orientations, "I thought so were you?"

"I don’t really know what I am," James admits. His voice is small, but his body has loosened up, tilting to the side towards Robbie who is tempted to reach his hand across what little space remains between them but doesn’t want to spook James.

James, at this moment, lifts his head to look at Robbie and says, "Except very much in love with you."

Things Robbie Lewis did not expect to happen to him twice in one lifetime: To love and be loved like this, no ifs or buts, conditions or stipulations.

On the telly, someone forms molten sugar into tiny, delicate butterflies.

* * *

One of the greatest choices of being with someone, Robbie has found, is simply lying next to them; occupying the same space, stretched out on a sofa, legs and sides pressed together, arms slung around the other person’s shoulder; sharing a pillow while sleeping, heads so close you are breathing the same air.

It’s dark outside and equally dark inside Robbie’s bedroom. The clock on the bedside table tells him that it is 3:47 in bright, neon numbers. James is warm along his right side, blond head buried under Robbie’s armpit, nose against his ribs, one arm slung over Robbie’s chest, the other curled under his head. He has his ridiculously long legs pulled up and his somehow cold feet tangled with Robbie’s. Robbie doesn’t want to disturb his lad, but he is lying on his back and the bruises there are making themselves known now that he is awake enough to feel the pain. As carefully and slowly as he can, he tries to scoot out from under James’ arm to turn on his side, but the small movement is enough to wake his sergeant, who seems to snap from asleep to awake in the span of a second.

"What?" he asks, voice rough in a way that makes Robbie’s toes tingle.

"Shh, go back to sleep," Robbie murmurs and ruffles James’ surprisingly soft hair.

Of course James doesn’t listen to him, pushing himself up slightly to better look at Robbie.

"Why are you awake? What’s wrong?"

"Nothing, soft lad. Being on me back is not ideal."

"Oh, of course."

And James is up like a shot, kicking off the blanket, piling up the pillows they weren’t using behind Robbie. If it weren’t so endearing, Robbie would be laughing at James, still mostly asleep and wearing only his underpants – which, Robbie is old enough to admit, he very much approves of all the skin on display.

Barely two minutes later, James flops back down next to Robbie, satisfied smile on his dear face.

"There." He gestures to the pillows piled behind Robbie. "Your throne awaits."

"You," Robbie simply says, fondly, and scoots back until he is snug against the pillows, pain immediately lessening, and then pulls James with him, so the other man can curl up against him again.

"Me," James mumbles into Robbie’s collarbone, already half asleep again, limbs relaxed and face soft as he looks up at Robbie.

"Yes, you."

Robbie pushes a hand through James hair once more and curls a little more around the other man.

It was, Robbie thinks, a minor miracle, that he took a tumble and James was there to not quite catch him but hold him after.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not British; I'm not even related to anyone who's British (not even by marriage!). You are welcome to point out any blatant Americanisms.


End file.
